Irish Lions face blame game

IAN McGEECHAN has turned to seven of Ireland’s Grand Slam heroes to rescue an ailing Lions Series, but Ollie Campbell believes there’s likely to be a backlash against the Irish contingent should the match go pear-shaped in Pretoria.

The legendary Ireland out-half, who toured with the Lions in South Africa in 1980 and three years later in New Zealand, says McGeechan’s team selection will see the knives sharpened for the Irish should the Lions lose the second Test to the Springboks in Loftus Versfeld.

Ireland’s representation on a Lions Test team is testament to the rude health of the game here, but should the tour go belly-up tomorrow the English press are likely to “up the ante” and point the finger of blame at the Irish, says Campbell.

Campbell is in a good position to understand how unmerciful some of Fleet Street’s finest can be towards the Irish having witnessed Ciaran Fitzgerald vilified as captain at the hands of some sections of the English press on the 1983 tour.

Asked whether he felt there could be a green-backlash should this tour go belly up, Campbell said: “I don’t think there is any question about that. Once this squad was announced with 14 Irish in it, I think the knives were being sharpened. I think they were at the ready if things weren’t to go according to plan and that the Irish, from Paul O’Connell down, would be held responsible for it.

“The ante has been upped now with the fact there’s suddenly so many Irish in the Test team.

“I know there have been some question marks over Paul,” added Campbell. “The captaincy was between himself and Brian – that was just 50-50 call, but they decided to go with Paul. He’s a very experienced captain. His lineout play is first class; his whole game is, except his carrying-game which is not up to his normal standard whatever the problem is: maybe he’s taking the ball a little bit deep, maybe he’s a little bit more static than when he’s at his most rampaging best for Ireland and Munster but he doesn’t quite seem to be in that mould just on this particular tour.

“I would have heard and read more specifically with that rather than necessarily his captaincy or any other part of his play.”

Campbell refers to his own memories as a Lions player in New Zealand 25 years ago when Ciaran Fitzgerald’s leadership abilities were constantly undermined by the English media.

“That criticism was much more obvious, much more open, right from well before the tour even started because the British press at the time saw Peter Wheeler as their captain. Both played in the same position, and the decision went to Ciaran. Suddenly from before the tour started the knives were out, and Ciaran had that.

“I’m not fully aware of what they said in the UK press about Paul but it wouldn’t be remotely anything approaching the level of criticism Ciaran took in 1983. If we lose I don’t think there’s any question but that will go on though.”

Campbell does however believe O’Connell has been targeted by the South Africans.

“Ronan O’Gara in his own book said, ‘you hammer the hammer’; so I think Paul is getting a little bit of the Munster treatment. Now he knows what it’s like. He’d have been seen as a talisman. The Springboks, when doing their video analysis see O’Connell and O’Driscoll and say, ‘if we can stop those two, we can stop the Lions’.”

Campbell has been largely impressed with the contributions of the Irish contingent, saying they’ve been “pretty much the backbone of everything (good) that’s happened on this tour”. And he feels Ronan O’Gara can make a positive impact tomorrow off the bench.

“I still have a feeling Ronan O’Gara is going to have a say in the destination of this series. You can imagine him coming on 20 minutes or half an hour to go, and him being very effective in turning around either in kicking a winning penalty or another winning drop goal.”

Meanwhile, Eric Miller, a member of the successful 1997 Lions tour to South Africa, says that whether the current Lions win or lose the series the Irish can “hold their heads high”.

He also has taken a swipe at the Lions management for failing to communicate a coherent game-plan to the forwards.

“The Irish guys can definitely hold their heads up high. I’m sure they’re not thinking that way (about a green backlash). The team really needs to come together and start reading off the same team-sheet regardless of the amount of Irish guys. From our aspect it’s great to see our guys haven’t let the side down, but as a squad I think they need to come together and countries and labels go out the window.

“I can’t speak from inside the camp, but in ‘97 we just seemed to gel straight away. We had a strategy, we had a way we wanted to play them and practised it over and over and over again. Once you broke a tackle, you knew there was always someone there – it was difficult to explain. It hasn’t happened to that extent this time around. I blame the management for that one because you can see guys running into the ball but they don’t seem to have that clear strategy, direction or unity of purpose in the way they’re playing.

“They showed great character to come back the way they did last Saturday that will stand to them. It showed guys are getting on well, they’ve gelled but as regards the game-plan, I’m not convinced.”